Archives for November 2009

In the same spirit as OurPDX’s shared links, I would like to highlight a few recent blog posts I have found particularly interesting or impressive or informative or just plain amusing, all of which happen to be from blogs in my blogroll.

Portland’s Food Carts on NBC at Food Carts Portland

Back in August, Portland was visited by NBC Nightly News to do a piece on Portland’s food cart scene. It was a great few days showing the producer around and chatting with him and introducing him to some of Portland’s cart owners.

Anti-Soccer Whines: ‘There’s Not Enough Scoring’ (one in a series) at The World is Round

People who haven’t grown up in soccer-rich cultures have a number of knee-jerk aversions to the sport that are worth considering and, inevitably, dimissing, and I’m going to take time now and again to do the hard job of exploring and negating them.

We’ll begin with a common plaint that has to do with the way some matches end — namely, with no goals having been scored.

Now Open: Portland Neighborhoods Bursting With New, Local Businesses at Neighborhood Notes

We’ve heard it enough: these are tough times. What we don’t hear enough is how creativity and gumption thrive—and are rewarded—during those tough times. Should it be any surprise, then, that here in this hothouse of ideas and cheap rents, more and more businesses are actually opening rather than closing?

Markets in Peril Update: Using Scare Tactics at Good Stuff NW

And you thought scare tactics were so last year. Turns out Dick Cheney isn’t the only one who wanted to frighten people into panicky overreactions…now food officials are summoning the image of (ick!) bloody diarrhea to try to support increased restrictions on Oregon’s burgeoning farmers’ markets.

Maybe Portland Doesn’t Suck After All… (pt.1) at Portland Sucks

Yet these past 2 months, just as the city I live in has seemed to hit rock bottom, I’ve discovered all over again just why I love this damn place so much. You can shove skyscrapers, banks, insurance companies, and annoying cell phone kiosks almost anywhere and call it a city, but you need good people to give that city a heart and a soul – and I’ve discovered that Portland has both when it counts, and it has them in abundance.

Oregon’s Only Frank Lloyd Wright House at Lelo in Nopo

The Gordon House at the Oregon Garden was up and moved from its rural farm property in 2001. It’s the only Frank Lloyd Wright designed building in the state, and I’ve been meaning to visit it for awhile. In fact, it’s the only Frank Lloyd Wright in the Pacific Northwest.

More Café Memories: Torrefazione Café at Giovanna’s Trifles

The first years I lived in Portland, it was hard to imagine hanging out in cafés. Which was just as well, because there weren’t that many. But a few years and three kids later, something exciting happened. Torrefazione came to town. If Starbucks created a widespread thirst for espresso drinks (Berkeley cafés did it for me), Torrefazione focused that thirst.